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Fatah, Hamas on Brink of Civil War
Worsening Conflict Between Rival Groups Threatens To Split Palestinian Society
JERUSALEM—When they start to throw their compatriots from the roofs of highrise buildings, it is a sure sign that something has gone very badly wrong.
In the tormented Palestinian territory known as the Gaza Strip, a great deal seems to be going very wrong indeed.
Yesterday, fighting continued to rage between two armed factions vying for power in Gaza — one known as Fatah, the other as Hamas — amid charges that an attempted coup was underway against Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah.
Many feared the conflict would soon escalate into an outright civil war that could split Palestinian society all but irrevocably.
"It's a very drastic and painful situation," said Sami Adwan, Palestinian co-director of the Peace Research Institute in the Middle East. "It's a very lousy thing, the bloodshed. It is wrong."
Last night, the death toll stood at 37 following three days of combat and chaos that broke out in Gaza earlier this week — a renewal of a long-simmering conflict that also flared last month.
On Sunday, Hamas militants kidnapped Muhamed Sawirki, a 24-year-old member of a Fatah-allied military force, and later threw him to his death from the roof of the Ghafari Tower, Gaza's tallest building, one of two such incidents in recent days.
Yesterday, Hamas gunmen were reported to have kidnapped the Palestinian vice-minister of transportation in the West Bank capital of Ramallah, a worrisome signal that the unrest could spill over into the West Bank, so far insulated from the storm of internecine warfare that has descended upon Gaza.
Meanwhile, Fatah unleashed a rocket attack yesterday on the home of Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas, without killing its target.
Why are Gazans at each other's throats?
"There are external reasons and internal reasons," said George Giacaman, director of Muwatin, a Palestinian institute dedicated to the study of democracy.
Among the external reasons for the fighting, Giacaman highlighted North American and European opposition to Hamas, a radical Islamist group that surged to power in Palestinian legislative elections in January 2006, but that is shunned by many in the West as a terrorist organization. Many governments, including Canada's, have cut off funds to the Palestinian Authority because of Hamas's darker side and its failure to formally recognize Israel as a state.
Fatah, which controlled the Palestinian Authority before losing out to Hamas at the ballot box 18 months ago, has interpreted international opposition to the organization as a green light to go its own way, says Giacaman.
"Some quarters of Fatah have not accepted that Hamas should have taken over after its victory in January 2006," he said. Meanwhile, economic conditions in Gaza — miserable at the best of times — have steadily deteriorated as sources of foreign funding have dried up in the wake of the 2006 vote.
As a Fatah leader presiding at the head of a government dominated by Hamas, Abbas is evidently powerless to control the spiralling violence.
As social and political order have broken down, the territory has witnessed an alarming rise in the firepower of unruly clans that operate mainly in their own interests but that also ally themselves when convenient with one or another of the main disputing factions. Efforts by Egypt to broker a peace accord between Hamas and Fatah have produced a so-called unity government, but the shaky arrangement has failed to yield anything in the way of real unity.
Two years ago, Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza following nearly 40 years of military occupation, but that dramatic measure has been followed by a halt in the search for a lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians.
The stalling of peace efforts, says Adwan, has fed the sense of hopelessness already felt by many in Gaza, contributing to the territory's descent into its current blood-drenched troubles.
"I don't think a ceasefire will be achieved by internal agreement," he said.
For the moment, there is little cause for optimism on any front, certainly not while armed thugs are throwing their enemies from the roofs of highrise buildings.
"This," said Giacaman, "is a very sorry state indeed."
© 2007 The Toronto Star
10 Comments so far
Show All"... amid charges that an attempted coup was underway against Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah."
Let's see ... who might have the vested interest in "charging" an attempted coup? Israel certainly. The Bush crowd definitely. The military-industrial-political matrix absolutely.
When will the average world citizens stop allowing themselves to be manipulated by the military-industial-political (M-I-P) matrix? The matrix manipulates people into their own (and the planet's) destruction. I don't think we can stop the matrix - the war machine has been around for too many lifetimes to stop. But each individual can take personal responsibility for stopping themselves from being manipulated by it.
And I believe that deep deep down, people know that they are being manipulated. At a cellular level, I do believe that people know this. And yet, average world citizens continue to allow it. Why? Do they think that they can out-manipulate the military-industrial-political matrix. That's simply not going to happen. It's the only game that M-I-P knows how to play!
The only thing each of us can do is stop playing the game. When you don't have enough players, the game falls apart.
In the (slightly modified) words of the immortal Jean Luc Picard, "Don't engage."
Several weeks ago Israel delivered some arms to Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah faction that on the face of it, appeared wired. Israel giving arms to Palestinians to do what? Shoot at Israelis instead of throwing stones at them? Also, some weeks ago when President Abbas met with Olmert during the recent Rice's shuttle diplomacy to the area, Olmert kissed Abbas. That was the kiss of death. With the fighting now going on between Hamas and Fatah, things don't look as weird as they did before—Israel was arming Abbas in preparation for a civil war.
It looks like Abbas is more like Yasser Arafat, someone the West and Israelis want to continue to play peace games with for many years while Israel keeps building more settlements within the occupied territories. For the sake of the Palestinian people, I think Abbas should resign and let Hamas who defeated them in the last election assume total control. Abbas appears to be more on the side of the West than on the side of the Palestinian people.
Saila, I believe Egypt delivered arms (2,000 guns, 20,000 clips, 2,000,000 bullets) to Fatah, but it was with Israeli approval.
The Mossad motto is "By Deception, Thou Shalt Make War"
They will do the same with Hamas and Fatah in Gaza that they did in Iraq with the Sunni's, Shiits and Kurds. That is false flag incursions between the factions, always leaving evidence the "other" side did it. Soon in Gaza, like in Iraq, a full fledged civil war, only now between Hamas and Fatah.
That's the way they work. Always have, always will. Check their history......
Question is how much is Israel controlling its own country and how much is the US controlling Israel's actions?
I was shocked to find out a few years ago that Israel and America's arms production industry are so intertwined that it is almost impossible to tell the difference.
And, recently, supposedly America "winked" at Israel should they want to attack Syria!!!
Nixon's presidency was feared because it was expected to be anti-Israel. However, it turned out that he armed right-wing fanatics in Israel. Control of the nation has been taken from the peace-loving Israeli as we saw with the coup on Rabin -- "Murder in the name of God."
The crazies among us in government also set the Afghanistani fundamentalists to war, arming them and organizing them into the "Taliban." They did this six months before the Russians entered Afghanistan and it was done to . . . "bait the Russians into Afghanistan in hopes of giving them a Vietnam type experience."
Granted some of the crazies are crazier than others, but we seem to have the mother-load of crazies in America right now in charge of our government. HELP!!!!
Chaos is no ones friend. Israel and Bu$h the inferior have destabilized a large part of the world and have not learned a thing yet. The plan to attack Iran is waiting only for an excuse. Bu$h the inferior will certainly attack as soon as he believes no additional political damage will result or that his political fate is completely sealed.
Yes, let's blame the Jews.
There's no question that a civil war benefits Israel and to some extent the U.S.
But the ultimate hypocrisy is the U.S., purporting to bring democracy to middle east, yet they refuse to accept the legitimate elections held by the Palestinians that brought Hamas to power.
By not recognizing this new elected Palestinian government, Israel, North American and European governments encourage the internal conflict.
Given that it appears my initial comment submission was rejected, assuming that it would have been verified by now, I'll try again with a shorter comment.
I find all of the comments, so far, including that of fpal, who posted since I last checked if my comment was accepted and posted; well, I find all of the comments very good.
With respect to MiddleRoad's comment, however, I wish to say that we need to rethink about our personal sensitivities on the situation between Israel and Palestine. Saying that Israel is very, very guilty, along with its strongest supporter and weapons provider, saying they are very guilty is NOT about blaming Jews.
There is a very major distinction that people need to be aware with respect to all of the people claiming to be Jews. A very good, including strong starting point is to see what 'True Torah Jews' and 'Jews Against Zionism' say about the conflict situation between Israel and Palestine. With that alone, you will quicly start to learn a WHOLE LOT that MANY Americans are evidently unaware of. These or those very Jews, who very strictly hold to being strictly Biblical in their religious faith, to stick with the Biblical Book of the Old Testament Jews, they are very opposed to what Israel has now been long doing to Palestine, and this is so ever since ..., well, around six decades ago.
Also consider when Israel invited Jews around the world to relocate to Israel, how many of those not residing in Israel reacted. Many if not most in Iran rejected the Israeli government's call, saying that Jews are not treated any worse in and by Iran than other Iranians, f.e.
Then there is the population of Israel to consider. It does not consist of only Jews who support what the Israeli government has been long doing to Palestine and therefore the Palestinians. The population is NOT a consensus of support, but like in most other places in or involved in conflict, there are differing views.
Also, NOT all of the population of Israel consists of Jews. There are also Palestinian Arabs, f.e.
A good, but surely not the solely good resource where there are plenty of articles on the Israel-Palestine conflict is at http://www.GlobalResearch.ca .
The following provides a graphique illustration of how much of Palestine has disappeared, having been transformed into expanding territory for Israel.
"maps of Palestine - 1946-2000",
http://z10.invisionfree.com/aaronmann/index.php?showtopic=1368
What that illustrates can surely be verified with some Web searches.
So, MIddleRoad, you are CORRECT, it's not the Jews who are to blame. However, the governments of Israel and the US, along with governments siding with the US government in all of this, now they are ALL TO BLAME; although Israel and the US most of all.
The Palestinians are about resistance. They commit occasional attacks on parts of Israel, but consider the casualty and destructon comparisons; they're tremendously greater on the part of Israel. So it is understandable that some Palestinians occasionally are angry enough, and not quite thinking enough, to think about carrying their small-scale attacks in or on Israel, and kill some citizens and residents of Israel.
If you think that that is bad, then try considering the extreme casualties of Israel, the US, and other countries or governments; perform some extensive comparisons research or study. If people do this, then they should be able to start to see the world in a very different way than they did before.
And the US military-industrial complex finds Israel to be a very profitable client state. We should not be surprised, for, f.e., criminals often make use of other criminals, and for matters or purposes like profit, territorial turf gain, carrying extra-load tasks when one group of criminals is in need of some extra hands, etc. There is nothing new in this.
The UNSC has drafted over twenty resolutions with the purpose of trying to get the Israel-Palestine conflict resolved, to get Israel to stop, and for Palestinian resistance to stop attacks on and in Israel. The US government has now vetoed over twenty of these vetos, and, if I recall correctly, then these are all in a row, one after another, contiguous vetos. ONEE sole member state of the UNSC opposed these UNSC resolutions. Quite TYRANNICAL, this sure seems to me.
http://www.jewsagainstzionism.com
Google Search on "Jews Against Zionism", Google.ca
There's more than only the above website.
Lets just get one thing straight on the shunning of Hamas. Upon its election it openly reneged on the peace process. Not just on particulars either, the concept as a whole. That's why the PA it controls has been cut off from foreign aide. Alot of that aide was part of the results of earlier agreements that hamas by de facto riped up. The current situation in Palestine is chiefly a diplomatic failure on the part of Hamas.